The answer is in the question: - If you are offering a free trial, you want all your users to be customers - If you are offering a free tier you bet your free

The answer is in the question: - If you are offering a free trial, you want all your users to be customers - If you are offering a free tier you bet your free users will either: become customers at some point or create some free marketing for you I don't know if there are pro/cons, there are just times when you need one, and times when you need another. If you sell something really expensive, you can't put a free tier for example. It is always difficult to quantify the marketing aspect of things.